This popular quote by XPrize founder, author and innovator, Peter Diamandis succinctly states the need for change.
We know the world is changing rapidly, while this is not a new concept, the rate at which change is occurring is. According to a presentation given recently by Paul Ablack, CEO of OnApproach, at CUNA’s CFO Council annual conference, it took about 10 years for the Sony Play Station to displace the pinball machine, today Uber and Arbnb began to displace their competition in less than three.
To survive, companies need to be nimble. Netflix, for example started shipping DVDs to homes in 1999. In 2007 they delivered their billionth DVD, but they kept on changing and quickly moved to streaming video by 2008 and now they are creating their own content.
“Credit Union’s have only one priority,” says Ablack “and that is to figure out how to become attractive to a younger base of members who spend the majority of their day engaging on their smart phone.”
For change to occur, 3 factors need to be in alignment.
1. People – Agile, iterative and collaborative
At the leadership level, credit unions need to have c-suite personnel that manage, direct and deploy enterprise analytics, as well as have cross-business units assigned to innovation. Specifically removing obstacles from processes, developing products that members demand, and setting membership engagement metrics that include enterprise-wide service agreements
2. Technology - Build or buy
Uncovering and predicting the member’s needs requires new technology resources. According to Ablack, 95% of credit unions lack the resources to implement and maintain 360 data analytics. His recommendations is that credit unions make the commitment to either build or buy an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) that is scalable to meet the needs of any credit union and complies to CUNA sponsored CUFX.
3. Process - Connect data sets to move KPI
Connected data sets generate the insights to understand member’s needs and wants in 360 degree view that has never been seen before. Developing a process to identify what data to extract, how to translate and shape it into deliverables to move KPI is tantamount to change.
Change is never easy. However, since credit unions are incredibly important to the current and future members they serve and the communities they support, change is MANDATORY.